On December 17, 2010, the US National Organic Program (NOP) voted to accept the recommendation of the US National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to prohibit engineered nanomaterials from the production, processing, and packaging of certified organic products. The decision was made with little fanfare, but has big implications. Background ...

Growing Power (GP), a nonprofit urban garden and training center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, provides affordable produce to neighborhoods without access to fresh food, and processes a variety of organic wastes through composting and anaerobic digestion. Located on a two-acre lot on Milwaukee's north side, the six greenhouses and several hoop houses include raised beds for herbs and greens, ...

OPTIONS FOR MANAGING COMPOST LEACHATE DURING EXCESSIVE RAINFALL CONDITIONSAn Information Sheet prepared by The Composting Association in the United Kingdom gives an overview of available options for managing “liquor” (leachate) produced at composting sites - especially following the excessively rainy spring/summer of 2007. “Compost leachate” can be described as water that has changed in ...

Dr. Weller is Research Leader of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Services Wheat Health, Genetics and Quality Research Unit at Washington State University (WSU), Pullman, Washington. His specialty is plant pathology and the cutting-edge research that his research unit conducts ...

“In early 2008, Saudi Arabia announced that, after being self-sufficient in wheat for over 20 years, the non-replenishable aquifer it had been pumping for irrigation was largely depleted,” writes Lester R. Brown in his new book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (W.W. Norton & Company). “In response, officials said they would reduce their wheat harvest by one eighth each year ...

Throughout most of human existence, population growth has been so slow as to be imperceptible within a single generation. Reaching a global population of 1 billion in 1804 required the entire time since modern humans appeared on the scene. To add the second billion, it took until 1927, just over a century. Thirty-three years later, in 1960, world population reached 3 billion. Then the pace sped ...

Introduction Palm oil is a vegetable oil that is a common ingredient in a wide variety of products, ranging from biscuits, bread and noodles to shampoo, candles and deter-gents. It has been estimated that around half of all packaged items found in supermarkets contain it. Palm oil is also used as biofuel. The use of palm oil is expected to continue growing, with an esti-mated doubling of ...

Partners for Resilience (PfR) is a collaboration of CARE Nederland, Cordaid, the Netherlands Red Cross (NLRC), the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre, Wetlands International and 30 civil society partners in the global South. It is one of the biggest programmes of its kind in the world, working on ecosystem-based and climate-smart disaster risk reduction (DRR) in nine countries (see map below), ...

Self-sufficient nation states in the middle of the ocean might be our ticket to a sustainable future. Oceans cover 71 percent of Earth’s surface, yet provide less than 2 percent of the food we eat. The growing demand for seafood, however — predicted to rise to 8 percent during the next decade — from an already depleted and exhausted ocean is forcing ...

Introduction For the first time in history, several American bee species have been classified as endangered. There are many factors that have contributed to the decline in bee populations in recent years, with climate change being at the root of many of these issues. In order to save the dwindling number of bees, we must implement the mitigation and management plans that are in place, ...

SEVERAL months ago, I started on a journey through the pages of Compost Science, beginning with the Spring, 1960 inaugural issue. I was confident that I could whip through the articles and news items in the several hundred issues of the magazine between 1960 and 2009, and be prepared to write this article for BioCycle’s 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition. Granted, there were interruptions, ...

A new global ‘roadmap’ shows where to put roads for maximum benefit and least cost to the Earth. “The best thing you could do for the Amazon is to blow up all the roads.” These might sound like the words of an eco-terrorist, but it’s actually a direct quote from ...

A website called “BuildingSoil” has been launched by the Washington Organic Recycling Council to help builders preserve healthy soil on building sites. It's the latest Soils for Salmon project which aims to change standard site development practices. These new “soil best management practices” will soon be required by local governments around western Washington, as they update local codes to ...

Challenge One of the largest online food and grocery store that is determined to create an organic revolution in India. The company wanted to monitor its farms and ensure that the crops are grown organically. They were struggling with lower output yield and were looking for a farm management solution for ensuring traceability and strengthening sustainability. ...

"Kenya has a shortage of competent horticultural staff at institutional and commercial levels." "Horticulture is facing a crisis in the United Kingdom." "Is horticulture a withering field in the USA?" "Concerns over shortage of agriculture graduates In Australia." "Uganda's flower sector faces an imminent shortage of qualified managers and supervisors in flower ...

Sindh On - Farm Water Management Project was introduced in Sindh province for improving and lining of 4,000 watercourses, with 60% within the three established Area Water Boards (AWBs) and 40% in other irrigated area of Sindh. And also improving and rehabilitating of 100 distributaries and 25 branch canals in three established AWBs. In addition of this, another related improving work of ...

AG CHOICE is an on-farm composting operation located in the scenic countryside of Andover, New Jersey. On the drive to tour their site, it was astounding just how much of New Jersey, our most densely populated state, is still rural. Jay and Jill Fischer operate the two-year-old facility, which is one of a kind in New Jersey. Jay also owns and operates a sawmill in the area, and it was while ...